Species: Varicus nigritus, Banded Splitfin Goby

Varicus nigritus Gilmore, Van Tassell, & Baldwin, 2016

Banded Splitfin Goby

Body short, robust; head without pores; both nostrils tubular; a groove across top of front lip; gill opening restricted to length of pectoral fin base; gill membranes with 5 rays; dorsal fin VII (with filaments extending beyond spine tips) + I, 9; length of 2nd dorsal base > distance from 2nd dorsal base to tail fin; anal fin I, 8; pectoral fin 17, rays 14-15 extended, reach to under 6th dorsal soft ray; pelvic fins I, 5, completely separate, no membrane between 5th rays, no front frenum between spines, all rays unbranched, without flattened fleshy tips, 5th ray 1/5 length of 4th ray, fins long, 4th ray extends to origin of anal fin; scales: rough scales probably present over most of body (almost entirely lost in holotype); base of tail fin with 2 large, rough scales; no lateral line.

Head and body translucent; head with 3 thin black bars outlined in yellow, one between eyes, through eye, extending below eye as short triangle, 2 across nape, one down along edge of preopercle, the other curving back behind top corner of operculum and running down along base of pectoral fin; body with 4 oval black bars from the top profile, nearly to the bottom profile, the front 2 edged with yellow, the 2nd and 3rd very broad; dorsal, caudal, anal and pelvic fins bright white, lower edge of caudal and ventral 1/3 of anal fin black; 2nd dorsal with a yellow stripe along its center.

Reaches at least 4.4 cm

Rocky bottoms

Depth range 244 m

Known only from a single specimen from the Bahamas